Messing About

I don’t know why but I seem incapable of just going on an easy bushwalk along a trail, inevitably, I am off bushwacking through horrible fire regrowth or in pissing rain, or both at the same time. On this afternoon, I had taken myself around the bay to Maloneys Beach with the idea of strolling west along the beaches and headlands to Square Head, but, the tide was a bit too high for such a perambulation so I decided to wander east instead.

At low tide, you can walk a good bit of the coast from Maloneys Beach to Durras but not quite all the way as there are several spots where, even at dead low tide, deep slots prevent passage. I ambled along from Maloneys, around to Archeron Beach, all empty except for a few sea birds, and then at Judges Beach, I decided I would go right out to Three Isle Point which is always an interesting place.

The rock along Three Isle Point can barely be called rock, more semi-glued together dirt, and I had to weave from one teetering spine to the other to advance to where the tide was again too high to persist. So, finally, I had gone as far as I could along the shoreline and scrambled up another crumbly headland suddenly finding myself on the new track that National Parks is building to link Maloneys Beach to Durras (and beyond).

Well, what a lovely new track and so pleasant to stroll back along. There has never been a track from Judges Beach over to North Head Beach, although bushwacking across the headland to North Head Beach has always been relatively easy. I thought it would be interesting to see where the new track goes so followed it back to Judges Beach emerging behind some signage that indicated track construction although the trail builders seem to have moved on.

The normal Archeron Ledge track, which is also in good shape right now, follows along behind Archeron Beach but this new track was going on and on in a northwesterly direction so I kept following it even as it deteriorated into a very boggy section with tumbledown trees, getting fainter and fainter. I am, however, a sucker for any trail I have never been on before so persevered until I ended up at a deep, dark, murky, likely leech filled stream with no way across.

My regular climbing partner, and the reason I was walking not climbing on this lovely winters day, is currently laid up with an infected leech bite from standing about at the base of soggy crags and being attacked en-mass by leeches, so I was not about to enter the leech kingdom willingly. The reason I have no bites is because, like a sorcerer standing in a pentagram, I surround myself with salt and the strongest bug dope to avoid getting bitten by the filthy blood suckers.

I could go all the way back, but time was getting on and I had actually strolled along this unknown trail quite a goodly distance. Plus, no-one ever likes to go back, even if that is the sensible option. I used to teach travel in avalanche terrain for our local mountaineering club and so many times the best option was to turn the f**k around but the punters would do almost anything to avoid doing so.

I spied a log crossing the stream and wacked along the marshy ground to have a look at scampering across. It was a slimy looking affair and I almost slipped off immediately. Only one thing would be worse than wading the creek and that is falling into the creek from a slippery log crossing, so I moved on with the idea that I might find somewhere else to cross. But the ground is so saturated and creeks so full that there was really no way I could “end run” this creek without walking a couple of kilometres north. So, against my better judgement I returned to the slimy log.

I decided to au-cheval the lower log - awkward as my feet would have been in the water in a normal au-cheval fashion - but, where the log climbed precipitously upwards, I managed to regain my footing and balanced shakily across the lower sections of log and, leaping forwards, cleared the last bit of water before the rotten bit of log I was on broke in half and sank into the murk.

Still, I was not on any kind of trail so I had a bit more bushwacking to do before I eventually came out onto the track I should have been on had I not gone astray following random trails and I finally scrambled down to the car. “Where have you been?” Doug asked when I got home near dark, “Just about,” I answered blithely, recalling, of course what the Water Rat said to the Mole in Kenneth Grahame’s much loved Wind in the Willows “there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Or, on trails, off trails, on boulders, crags or even mountains.